Special Report: Columbia University
Table of Contents:
- Special Report: Columbia University
- Full Report
- More Than Two-Thirds of Full-Time Professors Work for Liberal Outlets
- Adjunct Faculty: Even More Left-wing Writers
- Only Praise for Terror-friendly, Anti-U.S. Al Jazeera English
- Liberal Leaders for the School: Lee Bollinger and Steve Coll
- Even Student Publications Are Biased
- The Liberal-leaning Columbia Journalism Review
- Guest lecturers: From liberal bloggers to third world dictators
- Columbia’s Bias Reflects Its Liberal Funding
- The Influence of Columbia Journalism Graduates is Extensive
Columbia School of Journalism doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of a larger, liberal institution. Honored guests of Columbia University include such notable figures as Iran’s Ahmadinejad, whose arrival caused nationwide criticism of the school. Two students writing for the left-wing blog Alternet assured their readers that Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University was “as American as Apple Pie.”
Six out of the 16 pages of the English translation of Ahmadinejad’s speech were filled with rants against Israel and a defense of his Holocaust denial. Ahmadinejad argued that questioning the Holocaust was as scholarly as testing laws of physics. The grammatical errors in the selections below are due to the translation.
“Can you argue that researching phenomenon is finished, forever done? Can we close the books for good on a historical event?”
“In the field of science and research I’m asking, there is nothing known as absolute. There is nothing sufficiently done. Not in physics for certain. There has been more research on physics that it has on the Holocaust, but we still continue to do research on physics. There is nothing wrong with doing it.”
“You shouldn’t ask me why I’m asking questions. You should ask yourselves why you think that’s questionable? Why do you want to stop the progress of science and knowledge?”
Soros himself came to the school to give the 2004 commencement address at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. His commencement speech was largely a rant against then-President George W. Bush and the War on Terror.
He said, “[A] majority of the electorate continues to have confidence in President Bush on national security matters. If this continues and President Bush gets reelected, we must ask ourselves the question: ‘What is wrong with us?’”
From January of 2010 to April 2012 (the last month recorded on CUSJ’s website) there were 104 lectures. Twelve of those were made by faculty, and 27, over one fourth, were made by representatives of liberal organizations. That count does not include lectures by individuals from nominally objective (but functionally liberal) outlets like The New York Times and CNN. One lecture not counted as liberal was by Sarah Ellison, who worked for the generally conservative Wall Street Journal, but who led the fight to prevent Rupert Murdoch from buying that news outlet. There were no conservative guest lecturers during the time frame researched.